


historia amoris

by ficfacfoe



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Character Study, M/M, Sam Winchester is a minor character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-26
Updated: 2020-12-03
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:55:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27726475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ficfacfoe/pseuds/ficfacfoe
Summary: welcome back to out of touch thursdays. this is a series spanning work in progress i'll be updating weekly, where i do my silly little character studies. basically meta analysis of the show itself with some additional coda-style scenes and a whoooole lot of internal monologue. enjoy!
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Kudos: 14





	1. like being chained to a comet

**Author's Note:**

> thank you syd @quinnkings for clowning in the google doc with me, undoubtably the highest form of romance known to man. best editor (person who yells a lot in comments) a girl could wish for!

_“And Lot's wife, of course, was told not to look back where all those people and their homes had been.  
_ _But she did look back, and I love her for that, because it was so human.  
So she was turned into a pillar of salt.  
So it goes.”  
_

_(Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five)_

  
  


When he thinks back to their first encounter, Dean remembers the ceiling cracking, windows caving in. He remembers surges of anger and grief erupting beneath his skin stronger than anything a celestial being should be able to evoke from him during that period of first getting to know one another. But was there ever any real getting, not just knowing? Dean recalls disbelief and stubborn faith, redirected, reinvented, quickly readjusting to the dissonance that may have come with being resurrected, or may just have more to do with the mark an angel left on him. An angel! He recalls a time when angels weren't on his list of supernatural creatures known to be more than myth. 

Cas, too, remembers anger. After everything, after hell and back, being unable to reveal his true form without glass shattering all around his subject, his charge, his Dean. Devotion dimmed his anger from the start. Grief began with defiance, for Cas. And oh, did he mourn. He mourned and agonised, nearly consumed with anger and grief of his own every time he counted the centuries he’d spent blind. Now, seeing, feeling; it soon grew blinding in its very own way. The way his vessel experienced physical sensations never dimmed, though, and Cas spent forever trying to attune his senses to knowing things he thought he’d known before anew. Knowing Dean came easily. Just as easily, the act of knowing changed. It started changing Cas that first day, and never stopped. 

Their first encounter on earth is, quite literally, an explosion of some sort. Shattered glass, static electricity, Cas a deafening force, a threatening presence; Dean full of questions, confusion etched into his skin. At first, it feels fuzzy like standing close to a tv screen, then it starts ringing in Dean’s ears, rooms falling apart around him. And Cas doesn’t understand. He wants to be there, with Dean, he needs to be close to the human in his charge. The draw is so strong, he finds himself somewhere between forgetting he needs a vessel and wishing he didn’t. They’ve been so close, he can’t quite wrap his mind around the necessity of corporeal barriers.

When Cas tells Dean that, “Good things do happen,” Dean is inclined to believe in a way that has him feeling boneless. _Why me_ , Dean thinks, _why me, why me, why me_? Cas says, “Three days ago you thought there was no such thing as me,” and curiosity ripples through Dean like a current. The whole world is ending around them, every fiction Dean used to write off as absurd now a trenchcoat-wearing fact who stands in Bobby’s kitchen and smiles crooked smiles at him. And Dean is so curious.

So Cas talks about millenia spent in heaven, about war, brothers, a Bigger Picture, and all the while he stares at the curiosity playing across Dean’s face. He doesn’t understand why Dean isn’t scared, or why he has no real interest in scaring Dean. Even the flap of his own wings has Cas feeling soft in Dean’s presence. 

Instead of scared, Dean feels close to Cas. From somewhere deep down, he feels Cas’s impending proximity every time he appears half a second before hearing the flutter of wings. Working together comes naturally. Asking for instructions and expecting cooperation is easy, in stark contrast to the slow, reluctant realisation that Cas is a soldier executing commands he never learned to question. It doesn’t sit right with Dean, not just because he’s never been a big fan of destiny, but because, somehow, this feels much more personal.

When Dean says, “We can do this,” Cas — realigns. He believes Dean. He believes in Dean. When Dean shows him the magnitude of his kindness, the gentle care with which he refuses to hurt people, earth as it’s been spinning on its axis suddenly comes to a halt and starts again for Cas, slightly shifted. With every curious tilt of his head, Cas gets closer to something he can’t name quite yet. Falling, in so many ways, he finds out later. Unbidden, secrets spill from him. “I’m not a hammer as you say.” He confesses, “I have questions, I… I have doubts. I don’t know what is right and what is wrong anymore, whether you passed or failed here.” And he doesn’t want to be testing Dean. He already trusts Dean. 

Anna is a surprise. Anna’s flirting, too, but the way her hand on the print of Cas’s palm tugs at something inside Dean isn’t entirely uncalled for. Dean ignores it, of course, blames it on circumstance. It’s just that, fine, maybe he’s intrigued by angels, the power they wield. Maybe Dean is intrigued by Cas, specifically, but he’s not thinking about that with Anna on top of him in the back of the Impala. It’s just all so curious, how Anna ripped out her grace in order to feel things. So maybe he does think of Cas, then. If he is a hammer, why does he hover around Dean, permanently mid-air? So far, Dean has only seen him touch two fingers softly to a forehead, most un-hammer-like. Uriel offers, “You see, he has this weakness. He likes you.” Dean thinks, _Cas is an angel_ , and _he likes me?_ and again, _why me_?

Everything is crashing down, everything around Cas tumbling over. In the wake of what he begins to realise, Cas might just smite a whole army. He stares at them, Anna and Dean. He understands. And then, after running to far opposite sides of a battlefield, Dean takes a crowbar to a demon’s head to save Cas. It hits him square in the face, the first feeling. 

For Dean, there had always been an emptiness tugging at him from inside, a pain so visceral the only thing he’d wish for was relief, even if that cost him his life. But now? Now, there is no empty feeling. There is _feeling_ , everywhere, whichever way he turns he feels things, and damn it, it still hurts but… different. It hurts like something hopeful, like maybe he can have — maybe he _deserves_ — 

When Dean says, “You could’ve just asked for my help,” he means _I would do anything for you, I owe you my life_ . Or maybe just _I would do anything for you, I don’t really know why_ . He tells himself, _I don’t think I’m meant to feel this way_ , as well as _none of these feelings are part of some grander scheme_ , which is so god damn confusing. How can blind devotion feel like the first choice he’s ever made on his own?

When they look at each other, reality as they’ve known it starts peeling away in layers. In each other’s eyes they see something deeper than who they are, like somewhere far away across dimensions this, too, exists. This unnamed thing, this profound bond, it gives every interaction a quiet undercurrent of intimacy that hums just beneath the surface of their respective personhood. Sometimes, Dean feels like a chess piece, manipulated and moved around by forces beyond his own free will, and Cas grows painfully aware of the strings pulling at him from all sides. However, staring into the other’s eyes fills them both with a sense of reckless abandon. 

And then Cas confesses, “My superiors have begun to question my sympathies,” like that’s supposed to explain anything at all.

“Your sympathies?” Dean asks, and how can he not see this? Cas is boiling over with it.

“I was getting too close to the humans in my charge. You.”

The look he gives Dean burns bright blue. He has to avert his eyes or he’s afraid he’ll end up with two black holes in their stead, this is too much truth to perceive at once. Still, he has to look again. 

Like this is not the most insane conversation Dean’s had in his life, Cas continues, steel-faced, “They feel I’ve begun to express emotions. Doorways to doubt. This can impair my judgement.”

Dean finds himself so desperately on Cas’s side. _I would do anything if you just ask_ , he thinks, and he can’t stop thinking it. And Cas can’t stop asking.

“For what it’s worth,” Cas tries, “I would give anything,” and there, he pauses, “not to have you do this.” And Dean, of course, does it.

Alistair taunts Dean, spits out, “You left part of yourself back in the pit,” and Dean doesn’t flinch at how much he knows this isn’t true. He’s never felt more whole. He has a purpose now, and he knows, intrinsically, how inexplicably tied it is to one angel. He also knows that it has nothing to do with some bigger scheme, but that he can’t quite figure out the meaning of yet. 

So when Anna comes back to ask Cas, “The father you love, you think he wants this? You think he’d ask this of you?” like she knows the one tortured by what’s happening a wooden wall away is Cas, for making Dean do this, for some reason all Cas can think of is her lips on Dean’s. She tells him that this is doubt, and he doubts that’s all this is. It gives him a headache. He doesn’t even know what a headache is, but he has to shut his eyes. He says, “I am nothing like you,” and he wishes he was. Anna touches his hand and he thinks of where her hand has been. He doesn’t understand. But god, he feels, he feels, he feels. He feels homicidal when Alistair’s hands close around Dean’s throat. He can taste his own blood and he can taste the light spilling from his mouth. His priority is singular, now. Personified. Dean is hurt, and Cas hovers. This can’t be part of the plan. How could he care less about the death of his heavenly siblings than the safety of one man? 

It all comes out in one sentence. “I’m considering disobedience.” This is a lie. There hasn’t been any consideration lately, only profound certainty that the one order he’ll carry out from now on is to protect Dean Winchester. He starts, “For the first time, I feel…” like it isn’t a full sentence already. And it does get worse. Anna touches Cas’s shoulder, and he almost recoils. He feels choiceless in an entirely new way. He has no idea what to do with it. Uriel says, “God isn’t God anymore,” and Cas thinks _yes_ , he would like to bow to humanity instead. It should terrify him. It does the exact opposite. 

From his hospital bed, Dean curses Cas, tells him to stay by his side with the fierce determination of prayer. 

When Dean does pray in earnest, Cas shows up. When he asks for help with hurt in his voice that goes straight to Cas’s core, he reinvents rebellion for Dean. Cas spills secrets that could collapse the framework of heaven and hell like they’re his own blood, for Dean. A prophet, a demon, an archangel. None of the consequences matter. Cas helps Dean with a smile on his face. He feels. He feels.

Cas gets dragged back to heaven. He returns hardened. 

“I learned my lesson while I was away, Dean. I serve heaven, I don’t serve man, and I certainly don’t serve you.” Dean wants to tell him that he never saw Cas like that, but he can’t. He can’t explain agency and at the same time say, _but maybe I you_.

There is too much happening at once. Dean thinks about the way seeing Jimmy Novak bleed stung. He doesn’t think about how seeing Jimmy with his family did the same. None of it has Dean’s heart pounding with a soft ache like watching Jimmy beg for Cas to take his body again. The fatherly devotion doesn’t make his chest burn, no. This isn’t happening. 

He screams until he’s hoarse. Cas’s name, over and over. This is happening. 

He doesn’t know exactly when realisation hit him, but apparently, Dean’s entire life now spins around one brightly ringing, glass-shattering force that only ever appears with the softest flutter of wings, a rustling noise mixed with a gentle touch of wind that changes the atmosphere of any room in an instant. Somehow, Cas has turned out to be the most fascinating variable in a world made up of constants. Enraging, for sure. Pivotal. 

There is a hand-shaped mark on Dean’s shoulder, and sometimes it burns in Cas’s presence. Sometimes it burns in Cas’s absence. Somehow, Castiel, angel of the Lord, started thinking of himself as Cas mere moments after introducing himself, something about the way Dean’s mouth shapes around the name when he says it, something about reinvention. 

“Dean, I can’t,” Cas tells him when he asks for truth, and the monumentally dangerous edge they’ve been teetering on reveals itself to Dean in one fail swoop. What the hell are they doing? What is he thinking, trying to get an angel to betray heaven? Why does he feel like he’s already won? 

“You are the one who will stop it,” Cas pleads, and Dean knows he means the apocalypse, but asks himself if that’s all. Like the apocalypse isn’t enough, he thinks about stopping the whole world for this guy. He would. 

Dean turns away from Cas. 

“Fine, I’m in.” 

This is the first time Cas truly sees the effect he has on Dean, and it has him swaying in place, suddenly dizzy. He reconsiders, questions his whole existence for a moment that stretches toward infinity, all with Dean’s back turned to him. Cas can still see it, clear as day. The way Dean wants to give him everything he’s got. 

“You give yourself over wholly to the service of god and his angels?” Castiel demands, and if Dean could see his true form right then, he would see an angel shaking, shaking to his core. 

“Yeah, exactly.”

Cas speaks quickly, needs to get this over with because he suddenly knows this to be a worse betrayal than blasphemy, this feels sacrilegious. “Say it.”

So Dean does. Dean remembers this as a beginning. 

“I give myself over wholly, to serve God… and you guys.” 

Suddenly, Cas’s eyes are swimming with unshed tears, brows knit together tightly in silent agony. He continues, “You swear to follow His will and His word as swiftly and obediently as you did your own father’s?”

Everything inside Dean unravels. Years, decades. He swallows, staring into Cas’s gleaming eyes. They are two soldiers, in that moment, resigning themselves to a shared fate. He’s reeling with it. The beginning of the end. He wouldn’t share this with anyone else.

“Yes, I swear.” He vows. “Now what?” 

He stands right in front of Cas, carved out of marble, staring straight back. 

Cas never knew a human body could feel this constrictive.

“Now you wait. And we call on you when it’s time.”

They stand like that, close, for a long time. Claustrophobia is screaming underneath Cas’s skin. Dean isn’t promising himself to any god, and when he lets his chin drop and shakes his head ever so slightly, they both know exactly where their allegiances lie. They may not be conscious of it yet, but this is when it is decided. 

Dean is debilitatingly full of devotion. Even standing up to Cas, maintaining eye-contact, his entire being kneels at the angel’s feet. 

This is for Sam, Dean reminds himself. This is only because he’s keeping Sam out of harm’s way, because they have run out of options. He isn’t handing himself over willingly. Dean is not relieved to be handing over his life, wholly, to the angel before him. He does not take pleasure in saying what he says to Cas, doesn’t savor the bitter taste of it. And Dean certainly does not picture himself on his actual knees, awaiting orders. 

All his life, he has been committed to carrying the weight of responsibility that’s been placed upon his shoulders. But now? Now, Cas tells him to wait. Now, Cas is in complete control. It has Dean’s whole body bowing from the inside out. The bruise protruding on his shoulder has him aching for the hand that touched it in order to be gripped and raised over and over again, to be thrown around and put into place wherever. He wants it. He has no idea what it is, but he _wants_.

So, every time Cas appears — even when Dean is mad at the world and at Sam and at God —

whenever Cas appears, Dean is inclined to cave. It leaves him feeling hollowed out and holy. More and more often, he thinks he could be made to do anything, he wouldn’t care. It would be for this angel. 

When Cas says, “Hello Dean. It’s almost time,” Dean’s wavering faith falls back on its feet. He doesn’t understand where or when this bottomless trust overcame him, but it rushes through his body like a shining light. Any other person, hell, any other angel who tries to order Dean around is met with stubborn wariness at the very least. So, technically, he swore his allegiance to all angels. But the moment he gets told to obey by another, his eyes drift to Cas. The allegiance Dean swore is chained to him alone, he realises, and he only realises this after the fact. 

Touching this memory, Cas flinches. He can see anger coiling deep in Dean’s stomach, tight like a fist. Cas knows this inexplicable power he has over Dean, and even if he doesn’t understand, he used it so Dean would hand himself over. Dean would not have made that same promise to any other instance in this cosmos. It makes Cas feel sick in human places far from his angelic form. The reality of their bond hits him soon after that, it hits him so hard that he feels like falling in unspeakable ways, and subsequently can’t meet Dean’s eyes for a long time. 

Maybe Dean should be angry at Cas for telling him no, he should definitely be terrified in this heavenly trap, but all he feels is curious. It’s the beginning of the end of the world, and he’s curious when Cas tells him no. 

So then, there is talk of heaven on earth after this very apocalypse. When he looks at Cas, Dean can picture it. There is talk of peace and happiness and all Dean can do is stare at unspoken truths written all over Cas’s face. 

And, curiously, he asks, “Why are you here, Cas?” He wants to hear it.

“We’ve been through much together, you and I. And I just wanted to say I’m sorry it ended like this.”

“Sorry?” Dean mocks. _Ended?_ he thinks. 

Dean is filled with rage, then, at the cataclysmic circumstances, rage his fist directs at Cas’s face. The force of it resonates in Dean’s chest, it rings like a bell between his ribs. Dean gasps at the celestial strength of this angel he is so very privately angry with, and almost laughs at the ridiculousness of it all. If Dean really searches himself, he is never angry at Cas, but always angry on his behalf. In a way, this anger connects them most profoundly. They are both unfree, together, having given up so much, only ever willing to give up everything for each other, but higher powers exploit their devotion, manipulating both Dean and Cas like lifeless pieces on a chess board. Two soldiers, chained.

Even after punching his face in a move that felt like it may have shattered every one of Dean’s knuckles, he looks at Cas like he’s a _person_ , and although Cas’s face barely registers the hit, it hurts. He looks at him like Cas is real, outside of it all. The desperate conviction with which Dean’s eyes gleam, fixed on Cas, has the angel close to exploding. 

“You know what’s real,” Dean spits, verbalising what’s already filling the room with static electricity because he really, really needs Cas to know. “People. Families. That’s real.” _You and I_ , he doesn’t say, swallowing hard instead.

In a futile attempt at self defense, Cas releases barrels of pent up tension: “I see nothing but pain here,” and, “I see inside you! I see your guilt, your anger, confusion,” and, stupidly, he tries to argue paradise. And all Dean thinks is, _do you? Do you really see?_ Cas grows taller. His wings spread, invisibly, a protective roof fueled by rage and helplessness. The shadows of feathers weigh Dean down until he shatters, professes, “I’ll take the pain,” his voice almost a growl. It’s too much, far too human-feeling. Cas turns away. But not for long, Dean grabbing his shoulder in a flash, “Look at me!” The reversal of age-old roles, the perpetually shifting weight of the world on their shoulders has both of their heads spinning.

Dean begs for help. No, Dean asks once, and Cas shoots back, “What would you have me do,” and in that moment, there is no question that he’ll do anything, anything at all. They will disobey together, they will be the same. They may be hunted. They will be real. For a second, Dean convinces himself of that, even then. “If there is anything worth dying for,” Dean vows, “this is it.” He does not dare rethink his words or dwell on their specific meaning. This is it. This is it. 

With the smallest tilt to the side, Cas shakes his head. Dean curses him, calls him soulless, calls him dead. As Dean turns to walk away, Cas speaks his name like prayer. He vanishes. He has long chosen a side. 

So every time Dean gets close to caving, Cas can’t keep his hands out of it. With the full force of his grace directing his vessel, he grips Dean tight again and again, pulling him away from danger. He stops heaven and hell for Dean. He doesn’t think twice about it. Cas’s protectiveness grows limitless, as does the strength he draws from it. They promise each other loyalty wordlessly with Cas’s hand covering Dean’s mouth in a move that should feel threatening but never does, not for one second. They don’t speak. They already know.

Cas cuts himself open and bleeds for Dean, professes, “We’re making it up as we go.” It’s the beginning of the end, and Dean stares at Cas, curious. 

This is the beginning of the end, and they’re not in this story. This is a new story.


	2. to the end of the earth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> and on this week's instalment of out of touch thursday, i present to you: season 5 according to me. some coda style extra scenes and lots of inner monologue. i'm... analysing characters from a cw show :/
> 
> "Dean makes Cas feel small. He is an angel, and he feels small and dumb when Dean asks him what he wants to do on his last night on earth. Because what comes to mind has nothing to do with earth and everything to do with Dean. He just wants - he has no words for it yet. He wants to stay alive, to really live, and he becomes painfully aware of it in Dean’s presence."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my original idea was one chapter per season but i only got through 4 episodes and already wrote all this, because... endverse. huge shoutout to seperis for creating a whole world based on one episode that makes me feel so insane i needed to write several pages about endverse myself. everyone go read down to agincourt!

_"The never-ending ache of love and sorrow.  
_ _Perhaps in some other life I could have refused,  
could have torn my hair and screamed,  
and made him face his choice alone.  
But not in this one.  
He would sail to Troy and I would follow, even into death."_

_(Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles)_

The apocalypse has begun with Lucifer rising in an explosion of light, ripping through space and time. One second he’s in a church, the next on a plane, the next at Chuck’s place. But the first thing Dean hears, the first thing that reaches his ears and pierces all the way through to a place deep within where knowledge is registered, is: Cas is dead. Everything else is just white noise at that point. The end of the world. And where is Cas? Satan walks among them. And this can’t be, Cas can’t be gone, he must have just disappeared, he _must_ be safe, up in heaven. His brother did this, his brother who drinks demon blood. And damn it, they were just getting to know each other, him and Cas. There is blood all over Chuck, chunks of flesh in his hair, and Dean can’t look at him, maybe he’s gonna be sick. 

He mumbles, “Cas, you stupid bastard,” shaking his head to himself, keeping his eyes to the floor where, hopefully, he won’t be staring at pieces of his angel, or Jimmy, but those lines are already blurred to Dean. Even after meeting Jimmy, he never once saw that man again, looking at Cas. And now he’s gone, both of them dead for good. Dean’s chest swells with anger at the cruelty that follows him around like his own shadow. Stupid, stupid, helpful Cas. He’s tuned out for the conversations that follow, not really present except for his rage. 

Dean is all rage. He bleeds and he thinks, Cas. My friend. Silently, he’s already praying. 

Lucky for Dean, they have the devil to hunt. This, he can bury himself in. 

And then, “It’s you.” Zachariah declares. “You’re the Michael Sword.”

These are the angels who killed Cas, maybe not personally, but it’s all the same to him. Dean is boiling over, even with fresh blood of his own spurting from his mouth. He said yes once, and only to Cas. Dean placed himself on a chess board with Cas, but now that the angel is gone, he won’t play. His stomach turns over at the thought of allowing any other angel access to his flesh and bones. None of them get to move him around to wage their war.

And then, Cas returns in a murderous flurry of light spilling from vessels. He kills his own kin, all but the archangel. He saves Sam and Dean, reflecting back the same rage that’s been gathering like a storm behind Dean’s eyes. Pieces on a chess board, all over again. Brought back from the dead, this time him and not Dean. When he sees Dean’s face, he thinks, this is the reason. He doesn’t know how exactly it happened, but he knows, with startling certainty, he was returned for this man. When Dean asks, “How are you back,” he can’t say any of this, so he vanishes. It’s too much, even just thinking about it makes Cas’s head hurt in all too human ways. 

The next time they speak, Cas hears himself say, “I will find God,” and the part he swallows makes his eyes burn. _For you. I will find God for you_. In all of his lifetime, he’s never so much as dreamt it. 

“He isn’t in heaven,” Cas explains, “he has to be somewhere.”

Dean, incredulously, almost amused by Cas’s stubborn determination that “finding God” in any way constitutes as a plan, says, “Try New Mexico, I hear he’s on a tortilla.” He tries not to smile, this is the end of all things, after all. 

“No, he’s not on any flatbread.” Cas’s expression is solemn. Dean’s eyes twinkle with something Cas can’t quite place.

So, in the face of armageddon, very much imminent, Dean notes something important: Cas doesn’t get sarcasm. It warms his cheeks, he can’t fight it. 

Suddenly, it all wells up inside Cas. Maybe it’s Dean’s joking antagonism, maybe it’s the way Cas’s ears are still ringing from things he wouldn’t let himself say last he saw the man, all he knows is that right now, words are falling from his mouth he would very much prefer to be shouting. Instead, he steps closer, says them directly to Dean’s curious face, wrinkles of mirth still lingering sweetly around his eyes.

“I killed two angels this week. Those are my brothers,” he tells Dean, uselessly; Dean was right there, he saw that, he knows. Cas starts again. “I’m hunted, I rebelled, and I did it, all of it, for you.” Quickly, he adds, “And you failed.” His head is spinning, he doesn’t know what he’s saying anymore but he keeps going, keeps leaning towards Dean, voice an angry whisper. Cas is so frustrated. He spat out, _I’m hunted_ , and Dean, _hunter_ , he thinks, why can’t he see what’s happening here?

Dean can’t hold his gaze. _All of it, for you_ , is echoing on a loop in his head. Just like that first day in that barn, he thinks, _why me?_ Why won’t Cas look away? 

Continuously, Cas will ask for pieces of Dean. Every time, Dean wants to say no, but then Cas won’t look away, will say things that sound like, _hand it over, all of it, all of you_ , and somehow, Dean forgets every word except _alright, okay_. Was there ever a choice? Is it a choice every time he says yes to Cas? He hands over his amulet, and so much more with it. His most prized possession, safe in Cas’s hand. Blue eyes bore holes through his own. Dean says, “I feel naked,” and Cas answers, “I’ll be in touch.” All of this, and the only thing Dean can do is roll his eyes. How the hell did they get here?

Turns out, another noteworthy thing about Cas seems to be his utter disregard for personal space when it comes to Dean, specifically. He says, “Hello Dean,” and he’s staring at him with that same intensity that has him weak at the knees and inclined to agree to pretty much anything, no matter how stupid, again. It rattles him to the bones, that look. He hates how he can’t meet the angel’s eyes, has to let them glide across Cas’s face instead, and that doesn’t help either. Dean says, “We’ve talked about this,” but they haven’t, actually, not outside of his own wandering thoughts, damn it. Cas takes a step back, and Dean relaxes, surprised to find he’s been holding his breath. 

When Dean walks away from the sink, Cas catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror, Dean’s back next to him in the reflection. He looks around, realises they’re alone. Strange. It has Cas shifting into a different frequency. It feels peaceful, knowing it’s just Dean in this room with him. Cas doesn’t feel the need to antagonise, here. Instead, he feels terribly open. Asking for help comes naturally. Not for one second does Cas ask himself why he knows Dean will go with him. He proposes his plan, and Dean goes, “You’re serious about this?” Like Cas has ever been anything but serious.

  
“Yes.” Of course he is. Stubborn determination radiates off of Cas, and Dean knows he will follow. Still, he has to question it, he has to at least try to be the voice of reason. 

“So what, I’m Thelma and you’re Louise and we’re just gonna hold hands and sail off this cliff together?”

That didn’t come out right. Dean feels a rush of adrenaline at the prospect he just described. God, they are so fucked. What is going on? Why is he going along with this again? And why does he get the uncanny impression that he’s just started flirting with an angel? He doesn’t need to watch Cas’s blank expression, cogs surely turning behind it, he knows the reference doesn’t make any sense to him. Maybe it’s better that way. Maybe it’s worse, who knows at this point anyway. 

“No angel will dare harm you,” Cas tries to explain, and Dean misunderstands him so radically, it slams into Cas like a blade.

“So I’m your bullet shield?”

Cas wants to scream out in pain. How could Dean think - how could he, for one second, forget that Cas would murder the whole world bare-handed before putting Dean in harm’s way? He’s trying to tell him that the only way he can ask this of Dean is because he knows he will be safe. 

“I need _your_ help,” Cas repeats. This vulnerability is quickly growing unbearable. How could Dean think he wanted him there as a human shield? His breath and his next words almost get stuck in his throat. “Because you are the only one who’ll help me. Please.” At that, Dean’s ears start ringing. He hears Cas’s breathless, _you are the only one_ over and over again. He hears it for years. Years. Realisation hits Dean that Cas, his friend, the angel actually needs him. It feels like sugar dissolving in water; inevitably sweet. He knows, now, why he can’t say no to Cas. 

How he can be so sure that Dean will, in fact, remain willing to help him, Cas still isn’t clear on. Why Dean is looking at him like that is even more of a mystery. Cas thinks, _I used to hold the knowledge of a whole universe_. What does he know now? Less and less every day. 

They drive. Dean doesn’t want to admit it to himself, but he lied to Cas. Teleportation was no problem for him, he just wanted something that lasted a little while longer, some time to process the things unfolding in the jumbled mess of his mind. So he told Cas his body couldn’t handle it. They drive in silence. He hits play on the tape from earlier. Free Bird comes on. How fitting. Something about how little regard Cas has for small talk (none) makes Dean feel at ease in a funny way. He smiles at the angel staring straight ahead. Cas notices, of course, and turns his head to meet Dean’s eyes. 

“What?”

Dean’s smile widens. He shrugs. “Nothing. I just like this song.”

Cas nods. “It’s nice.”

Dean decides to stop examining his increasingly turbulent thoughts, then, he really can’t unpack all that now. Blissful ignorance, that’s worked his whole life so far. Why stop now. 

Like another punchline in this big cosmic joke, Dean gets to note yet another fun fact about Cas only minutes later, once they’ve stepped out of the Impala. So, Cas doesn’t get why people lie. Interesting. Sweet, innocent, ancient being. “When humans want something,” Dean starts, and his hands move on their own accord, “really really bad, we lie.” He can’t believe he’s saying this, but it rolls off his tongue as quick as any witty comeback, so yeah, maybe he can get away with saying shit and not think about what it means. Apparently he can also get away with pulling Cas’s coat open to slide a badge into an inside pocket, fiddling with his top button, and fixing the angel’s tie. As always, Cas holds unsettlingly unwavering, impossibly blue eye-contact. 

Cas finds himself lost. Lost, physically, in Jimmy’s oversized suit and coat, a sudden awareness of his appearance surges when Dean starts putting his hands on him, and so out of place, in every way, when they enter a police station under false pretense. He doesn’t understand what Dean just told him, why they couldn’t just come right out with it, it’s the apocalypse after all. Nobody cares whether humans know about angels anymore, they’re bound to find out very soon no matter what. But this is Dean, and pretending to be an FBI agent is what he does. Cas wants to cling to him. The ease with which he lies is astonishing. All Cas has to offer is brutal honesty. He feels so stupid for it. 

When they’re back in the car, the tape starts playing where it stopped earlier, and when Cas looks over at Dean, he’s smiling again, shaking his head to himself. 

“We did get all the information we could out of him,” Cas tries in defense at the pending mocking he can already sense. He made a fool of himself, he knows this, but why he cares what Dean thinks of him on such a personal, unimportant level, makes him feel even more stupid. 

Dean makes Cas feel _small._ He is an angel, and he feels small and dumb when Dean asks him what he wants to do on his last night on earth. Because what comes to mind has nothing to do with earth and everything to do with Dean. He just wants - he has no words for it yet. He wants to stay alive, to really _live_ , and he becomes painfully aware of it in Dean’s presence. He asks him about women, and Cas’s heart starts beating out of his chest, suddenly he can’t look at Dean. He didn’t think he could feel entirely new ways of stupid. 

So Dean misreads some signals, hears _virgin_ and thinks _prostitute_ is the solution. It’s disconcerting. Cas starts thinking about how easy it was to be honest before, when it was the wrong thing to be, and has to stop thinking entirely when he considers new types of honesty concerning Dean. The sheer terror that overcomes Cas at the idea of telling him… What exactly? He isn’t sure, doesn’t want to find out, needs to stop going there immediately. He’s never wanted to before, is the reason he hasn’t tried anything. He desperately wants to go back to not wanting. 

Cas breathes quickly in the presence of sin while looking at Dean, thinks about where they are while looking at Dean, thinks about why he’s brought him here and looks and looks and looks only at Dean. When a girl comes over, he’s nervous, because he’s looking at Dean. He chugs half his beer, it doesn’t help at all. When Dean hands him money, hand on his arm first, Cas is shaking, still looking at Dean, who stands too close, talks too quietly. He can’t handle it. 

Cas follows her blindly, looking inward. The girl is see-through to him, completely, so he speaks the truth and offends her. Something about absent fathers. He doesn’t care. He’s already looking for Dean again. As they’re being kicked out the back door, Dean starts laughing, and doesn’t stop. Cas doesn’t think he’s ever been more relieved. He doesn’t know why he smiles such a quiet smile in return, but he feels Dean’s laughter ricochet off alley walls and he wants _more_. He wants this. Just them. 

He has half the brain to ask Dean, “What’s so funny?” only for Dean’s hand to land where Cas’s shoulder meets his neck, lightly. They’re still smiling as they walk up to either side of the car.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve laughed that hard,” Dean professes, “it’s been more than a long time.” His smile falters. “Years.” 

The car ride that follows is very quiet. Restlessly, Cas deconstructs his entire existence, which at this point seems to have become something of a daily ritual. What if this really is his last night on earth? He thinks, _Dean_ . Lately, his head screams nothing but _Dean_ , the name both an eternal question while at the same time seemingly the answer to everything. Nothing makes sense, and yet, everything is so simple. The man in the driver’s seat, a small smile playing around his lips every time he glances at Cas. He who plays his same old tapes over and over, humming along to each song. Cas wants all of it, desperately, forever. He didn’t know it could be like this, to want anything, to want everything. The only thing he’s ever known all his long, long life is to be useful. God’s plan. Soldier on. What if all he has left now is this one night? What will they do with him this time, if they see how close to falling Cas is? There are so many things he wants to say, he’s sick with it. He blinks over at Dean, catches his eyes, looks back out of the window. Raindrops slide along like little worms, not a single straight line, all wobbly, and Cas gets it. He, too, is hurrying shakily towards something deeply unknown, moved by the wind, this car, this man driving it. He takes a deep breath. He can feel Dean’s focus shifting between the road and him, never settling fully on either. He wishes they could stop. There are so many things to say. Cas doesn’t have a single word to begin expressing them. He is still an angel, so he won’t cry in this car, not where Dean can see him and will ask questions. Not when the answer to each of them would just be his name, the way it’s coursing through Cas’s mind. So he gathers all his celestial strength, clamps his teeth shut and follows drops of rain down the passenger side window. 

There is a storm and an archangel in a circle of holy fire. And God is dead. Something about absent fathers, Cas thinks. 

“If God is dead. Why have I returned? Who brought me back?” He thinks, there is a man standing right next to him in this storm. Cas can’t look at Dean. He is the reason. 

Back in the Impala’s quiet, dark stillness, Dean asks, “What do _you_ believe?”

It takes him a second. His eye is on the verge of twitching. “I believe he’s out there.” Cas skips mentioning the way he’s not sure believing this is still a source of comfort. 

“Good,” Dean says, kind Dean, who knows all about missing fathers, “then go find him.” So does Dean know anything, after all? He is too kind. Cas can feel surges of anger again, disorientation and tremendous grief. He can’t place any of it. All he knows is, Dean should be angry, too. Something in Dean’s voice, the genuine hope with which he says _good_ in response to Cas’s unwavering faith… it doesn’t sit right with Cas. Absent fathers should not be praised, he thinks. Cas moves through several vague, new emotions, while taking one stern look at Dean from the passenger seat. 

He arrives at the only thing left on his mind: “What about you?”

He doesn’t get a real answer. The only takeaway from what Dean says is Dean had fun with him, but Dean doesn’t think Cas is that much fun. The ever-evolving mystery of human communication. He frowns at the road. He needs to get out of this car. Something buzzes through Cas like an awakening, something about family and chains, freedom and happiness. He thinks he might explode again, spontaneously this time, no need for an archangel’s wrath. 

“Now that I’m alone,” Dean muses, and swallows - thinks, _well, not entirely_ \- “hell, I’m happy.” And with that, Cas vanishes. The smile falls from Dean’s face. What was he talking about? And Cas. Why wouldn’t he stick around? He feels a sharp pang of guilt at the loss. The man, the angel, just was told his heavenly father is dead. Whether or not Cas believes it doesn’t make that much of a difference. Damn it, he really could’ve been nicer. Talking about his own dad never got him anywhere, the rare occasions that he’s been so inclined. He drives silently, only the noise of wet asphalt and Baby’s engine hum in Dean’s ears. Truly alone, now. Oh, happiness. 

Still, Dean doesn’t feel despair at Cas’s abrupt departure. Ever since Cas first appeared, Dean hasn’t been alone. He knows that his angel will always return to him. It hasn’t been a long time, but he knows it’s true. This - him and Cas - doesn’t feel like family in a way that weighs him down like an anchor, responsibility attached. No, this is weightless, reckless, maybe too reckless in ways nothing has prepared Dean to deal with. Nothing is worked out for them, because there was never supposed to _be_ a them. Dean feels optimistic about Cas in a way that is so unhinged, like maybe the two of them could finally have something chosen, something of their own, here. After everything they’ve been through, everything they’ve allowed themselves to fall from and fall into, Dean feels positively unsteady. 

A few days later, he gets a call from Cas. It’s funny, talking to an angel on the phone. It’s particularly sweet because it’s Cas. His voice, pressed to Dean’s ear, closer than anything has come in a while. When he tries to do the math on how long they’ve actually known each other, Dean’s head starts spinning, time itself spinning out of control. 

By the side of a road, Cas finds himself astray in new ways. Needing a phone to communicate with Dean is annoying at best, and if he’s honest, seems near sacrilegious. He’s had some time away from Dean to try and figure things out. He hasn’t been successful. He wants to be with Dean again, now. But Dean’s voice comes in an unfamiliar tone through the line, whiny; it confuses Cas. Why would he make him wait? Fine, he needs sleep. Why can’t Cas come, still? Stubbornly, he plants his feet on the pavement. Trucks rush by, fog settles around him. He feels stupid. What would he even say to Dean? What would he even do?

Time has spun out of control. Dean wanted four hours of sleep. He got five years. Now, he has three days in a future where his actions lead to death upon death upon death. He gets punched out by himself. He is continuously punched by how five years hardened this new version of him, with every word he hears a relentlessness that makes his skin crawl. He’s having conversations with himself, saying out loud what he’s never revealed to anyone before to prove he’s the real deal, and it actually helps him feel less crazy. When he sets foot on the grounds of Chitaqua, his first impulse is to find Cas. He follows it, and what he meets makes him feel new levels of insane. 

Cas is lost in a monologue, sitting on a rug, in a linen shirt and his shoes look handmade, but the moment Dean steps through the curtain of beads ( _beads? really?_ ), Cas’s attention is on him with a smile and a wink. Dean wants to scratch his neck, to stop the itchy warmth from rising to his cheeks. Dean hears “orgy” and loses his battle, his head will, in fact, explode, now that Cas is stretching, back turned to him. This would be a perfect time for spontaneous human combustion. 

“What are you, a hippie?” Dean asks, hopelessly rattled. He can hear Cas’s spine crack with every twist of his head. 

“Thought you’d gotten over trying to label me,” Cas replies lazily. 

Dean is gonna jump out of his skin, or out of a window, maybe. Breathless, he starts, “Cas, we gotta talk -”

And that does the trick. Cas sways in place. Is he high? Dean stares him down, brows knit together. 

“Whoa, whoa, strange… You,” and with that, Cas sobers up swiftly, “are not you, not now you anyway.” Immediately, Cas turns serious, understanding easily what’s happening before Dean can even begin trying to explain. Cas already knows. “What year are you from?” Cas asks, and, “Who did this to you? Was it Zachariah?” 

For some reason, it bugs Dean, how Cas can see so easily. But he is an angel, so of course he would. It’s not just Dean he can read like that, it’s probably everyone. He is an angel, so Dean says, “Why don’t you strap on your angel wings and fly me back to my page on the calendar?”

At this, Cas laughs, his demeanor dripping with tragedy. His smile is cynical, and it hurts Dean, sharp and distinctive. Helpless, Dean demands, “What happened to you?” Numbed out grief grins back at him, through time and space. “Life.”

He is no longer an angel. Dean thinks, _wasn’t there just something about that?_ He can’t dwell on it. Cas is acting weird. Cas, five years from now, is stoned, wears hippie clothes and brings up orgies in casual conversation. None of this rattles Dean as much as the way he recognises Dean for who he truly is despite the state he’s clearly in, but Dean can’t dwell on it, not here. 

Next, Dean watches himself kill in cold blood. Then he hears himself say, “Tonight, tonight I’m gonna kill the devil.” Dean accepts these facts. Cas grins at him, nose scrunching up, and goes, “What?” Turned to this future version, “I like past you.” And suddenly, Dean forgets how to breathe. His eyes dance around the room, desperate for a distraction. Five years, Dean thinks, and Cas remembers him fondly. What has he become? Torturer, again. Uselessly sleeping around. Five years to obtain the Colt, and this is where they’re at? Dean wishes he could run far away from himself, and from this resigned Cas’s joyless smile. The way Cas agrees to Dean’s reckless plan makes his skin crawl anew. He doesn’t want to know why Cas is still here, doesn’t want to have to consider how he’s ruining the angel’s life. Here, Cas is human. Dean doesn’t want to know how, or why. Cas is popping pills in the driver’s seat, laughing like a maniac at Dean’s concern. Cas says, “It’s the end, baby.”

_How did you get like this_ ? Dean wants to ask again, and he mumbles, dumbly, “What happened with us?” He wants to ask, _what did I do to you?_ He’s giving himself a headache he thinks five years from now Dean still feels it. Cas keeps driving, smiling a lazy smile that holds nothing but bittersweet resignation. He glances over at Dean. “Nothing. Absolutely nothing,” he replies. It turns Dean’s stomach over. And then he hears Cas, the tightness of his jaw audible, “Dean is all I have left. I’ll follow him to the end.” The smile has faded entirely from his unshaved face, stark lines creasing his forehead that Dean only notices now. He feels an impossible pull to touch Cas’s face for a heart-stopping second, or at least his shoulder, but then he’s staring at the road ahead again, shaking himself out of it. 

“I don’t get it,” Dean says, more to himself than to Cas, “I don’t get how I could let all of this happen.” _To you_ , he wants to add. He swallows hard. 

Abruptly, Cas stops the car. His pupils are blown, but Dean gets the impression that Cas is very clear at this moment. “You did it for me,” he tells Dean, voice like tires over wet asphalt. There is that grief, again, on Cas’s face. “So I do this for you. This, and everything else.” 

The whiplash Dean experiences has nothing to do with how forcefully Cas slams on the gas again. His pulse is hammering in his ears, behind his eyes. What the hell does that mean? 

Quietly, the beginning of an explanation follows from Cas. “I think you thought it would kill me. If you said yes to Michael. Maybe you were right. But living like this…” _What happened to you_ , Dean remembers, Cas’s voice echoing back, _Life_. “You thought we could be free.” Cas continues, ruthlessly. “But instead, we become this. The only thing I think we have left, Dean and me, is each other.” Dean swallows. He can’t look at Cas. “If Dean says we go out in a blaze of glory, win or lose, so be it. I’m in. But then…” He grins easily, like this is just any conversation, yet the smile doesn’t reach his eyes. “That’s just how I roll.” His face turns serious again. “I’m not sure you made the right choice, Dean. It didn’t make us any freer. It made me weak.” 

The rest of the drive is eerily silent. Dean’s headache has grown claws, scratching at his skull from the inside. He needs to get back to his time, like, right now.

When they arrive, ready to face Lucifer, Dean watches himself lie. He sees it in all its viciousness, recognises the demeanour from how he’s been talking to himself lately, he’s gotten good at it. It’s tight around his temples, this headache. Dean tells Dean that this is a trap. His friends, they’re the decoy.

“Cas, too?” Dean manages to get out, and he’s surprised his voice is steady. He feels like screaming. “You wanna use their deaths as a diversion.” He’s looking at himself, hardened coldness staring back. He would never… “Oh man, something has broken in you.” He might throw up. He might punch himself right in the emotionless face. He gets punched out, instead. When he wakes up, shots are being fired everywhere. He sees his own neck snapped, feels his down his whole spine. When he wakes up again, rage wells up like a flood. Even while he accuses Zachariah of trying to trick him by showing him what he’s shown him, Dean knows somewhere deep down that this was real, oh, this was so very real. This world, this future, he can feel it really existing, it ghosts like a shivering touch across his skin. Despite it all, he keeps saying no. 

“You telling me you haven’t learned your lesson?” Zachariah spits at him in frustration.

“Oh I’ve learned a lesson alright. Just not the one you wanted to teach.”

Fear and anger and desperate clarity have every single one of Dean’s hairs standing on end. And then he’s standing by the side of a foggy road, and when he turns around - oh, sweet relief. He’s never felt tension leave his body so fast or so completely. He feels genuine warmth when the angel smiles. “We had an appointment.” Dean has to shut his mouth for a second so he doesn’t say anything incredibly stupid, boundless fondness brimming on the tip of his tongue. Unbidden, his feet take him a step forward, then another. He lets his hand fall on Cas’s shoulder, solid and trenchcoat-clad. Contemplative, he pulls his bottom lip between his teeth momentarily. “Don’t ever change,” he tells the angel, who looks at him like forever, like he knows, like he won’t but he will, somewhere in time and space, where none of it changes anything at all. He asks, “How did Zachariah find you?” 

Dean checks out. He can’t get into it, can’t begin to think about how Cas knows about Zachariah at all, what else he knows… He’s starting to suspect the angel reads his mind, which shouldn’t be surprising, but it dawns on him this very instant in a dizzying rush. So the obvious solution is to stop thinking entirely, at least for now. He calls Sam. He looks at Cas while it’s ringing. He tries very hard not to think a single thought. 

When Sam asks him what happened, he can’t talk about it. The only thing he can do that won’t make him lose his mind right now is cling to the idea that his brother plays a role in this story too, that he can hold on to what he knows, he has to believe it. Him and Cas alone, Dean decides, is a recipe for disaster. He won’t let himself go there mentally, not after what he’s seen. If that is what he does to Cas, he has to be smarter. They’ll find a way. But he won’t ever ask of Cas what he saw him give so willingly, even if Cas insists. When he kills the devil, he’ll make sure Cas is far, far away. 

That day, Cas decides, by the side of a road veiled in fog, that he should tune out of Dean’s frequency sometimes. Maybe all the time would be for the better, as to help him not lose his mind completely. After he called Dean and got told to wait, it started. It feels like a tugging of some sort, which he’s gotten pretty used to already because it was there from the start. At first it was curiosity, according to all of Cas’s deductive abilities. But then, he’s rusty. He hasn’t been on earth, hasn’t interacted with anyone other than the angels from his garrison in a long time. All this aside, the mental string Dean is pulling Cas in with needs to be snapped, immediately, because by the side of that road, it’s quickly turning into something else, something that makes it difficult for Cas to stand still, though he tries very hard. 

He hears it like prayer. He knows it technically isn’t. Dean’s thoughts of him, travelling all the way from a motel room in Kansas City to somewhere in the middle of nowhere, covered in mist. Cas wishes he could drag more air into his lungs, maybe the cool humidity would cloud and dampen this involuntary line of communication. It’s impossible to ignore the strength of Dean’s anger, grief, and terribly confused longing. There is no way to misread whom this longing is directed at, lazer sharp and precise, it punches right through Cas’s core. The certainty with which Dean sends out, _it’s only you and me now, Cas_ , makes him feel like falling to his knees. Mental images arrive accompanied by incoherent strings of words, anger at Sam and the whole world, grief so visceral it screams, and the stubborn determination with which Dean refuses to question Cas’s intentions. The intensity of Dean’s trust that reaches him in that moment hollows Cas out with soft hands, leaving nothing but warmth where he just recently found himself cold in the absence of God. He feels feverish. Can angels get fevers? He thinks, _Dean, your confusion is contagious_. 

Dean is calling out to him, Cas’s phone silent. Cas thinks, there is a hierarchy to this. The way Dean calls subconsciously has a different meaning than when he picks up a physical phone, he just told Cas, he doesn’t want him there. When Dean’s actual phone rings, Cas hears his voice as clear as if Dean were speaking directly into his ear, telling him to leave him alone, but then, just as clearly, he hears disappointment as Dean realises it’s his brother who called. Cas struggles to understand this. He’s getting a live broadcast of Dean’s every thought, and yet, it is a jumbled mess, one thought loud and the next incredibly quiet, something rearing up and something else squashed down, like insects dancing across water, some drowning, some struggling on their backs with their feet up in the air. Cas thinks back to drops of rain scuttering down the window of a moving vehicle. He wobbles in place. 

And suddenly, time whooshes by very fast, almost knocking him over. He senses another angel’s presence - Zachariah, near Dean. It’s too late, though, to fly in and take Dean away, he’s somewhere - no, sometime else. This is when the feverish heat reaches Cas’s head. Even for an angel, seeing into the future is unsteadying. Seeing a future version of himself through Dean’s mind is positively maddening. Every thought Dean has of Cas, and he has many, (why does he have so many?) pulls another bit of ground from underneath his feet until Cas finds himself suspended in mid-air. He’s aware of his surroundings still, knows that in reality, he’s still standing by that same road, but Dean’s journey takes him right across five years with every mention of his name, spoken or not. Cas drops into a crouch. He has to touch his hands to damp asphalt to remind himself of what’s real. There is a low, steady hum beneath all of the waves reaching Cas right now, and it’s _stay. Wait for me. Stay right where you are._

It’s not like Cas was gonna do anything else. For a particularly unsteadying second, Cas wonders if Dean can tell that he’s listening, if he’s telling him to stay out of it. He does his best. He doesn’t know how to when Dean talks to him directly, though. When Dean prays, in earnest, to get out of there as soon as possible and not have to look at Cas telling him the only thing they have left is each other, Cas wants to flick a switch and go dormant. He manages to stand up straight again, stretches his legs like he can walk away from Dean’s thoughts. The second he can feel Dean back in their own timeline, he reaches through space to pull him from Zachariah. When he sees Dean’s broad shoulders and then, finally, his face right in front of him, Cas can’t help the small smile that takes over his whole being. Dean. Safe and sound, and with him. And it’s easier, now, to keep his mental distance. Dean uses actual words and Cas can stop guessing. 

“Don’t ever change,” Dean tells him, and Cas can only smile, doesn’t have any words of his own for all of that, and resorts to asking back, “How did Zachariah find you?” Not that it matters. Dean calls Sam, and Cas just watches him, relieved to be allowed in his presence. When Dean hangs up, he takes them both to the Impala. Dean insists on driving to where he’ll meet Sam. Cas slides into the passenger seat like he belongs there, and Dean doesn’t tell him to leave him alone. Dean seems oddly at ease. He hits play on the tape deck, Lynyrd Skynyrd again. They share a smile when the first notes of Free Bird fill the car. 

However, Cas is left with a gnawing knowledge that he shouldn’t stay. He senses Dean’s focus, the way he needs to get to Sam to fix things. He decides to give Dean space. He vanishes wordlessly.

_TO BE CONTINUED_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If I leave here tomorrow  
> Would you still remember me?  
> For I must be traveling on, now  
> Cause there's too many places I've got to see  
> But, if I stayed here with you, girl  
> Things just couldn't be the same  
> Cause I'm as free as a bird now  
> And this bird you can not change

**Author's Note:**

> (fleabag voice) this is a love story. 
> 
> so. i do realise i fully ignore almost all of the plot of the season throughout this whole thing. that's intentional. i'm not here to recap spn as a whole i'm just here for the fruity angel and his repressed bi boyfriend and i'm only rewatching the episodes listed on misha collins's imdb lol. this won't change in the next chapters, however, i might start adding scenes that aren't actually in the show, coda style. lmk what y'all think!
> 
> (cautiously optimistic rn that i might be adding a new chapter every thursday but i won't make promises)


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